Cute little question to test out... come try it for fun and see

September 4, 2008 10:19pm CST
suppose you were at a game show and i gave you two sealed boxes. 1 box is filled with $100 cash and the other box is filled with junk. This is a 50/50% chance of you getting home the box filled with cash right? But suppose u headed up to a box but before you opened it i warned you that the box on your hand is just a box filled with junk. Does your probability still stay as 50/50% or did it change and if it did change, how much did it change by?
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1 response
Just an Ordinary Owl?
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
5 Sep 08
The odds do not change. All it adds it a 50% chance that you (the game show host) are lying. There is a better one involving 3 doors, behind one of which is a car and behind the other two are donkeys. You are asked to choose one of these doors (giving you a 1 in 3 chance of selecting the car). The host then opens one of the other doors to reveal a donkey. You are then given the opportunity to change your mind: you can either open the door you first selected or the other one. What should you do? It seems as if the odds of choosing the car are reduced to 50/50, since you now know that it must be behind one of the two unopened doors. In fact, there is a significantly better chance of winning the car if you switch!